


Hardline

by Missy



Category: Archer (Cartoon)
Genre: England (Country), Eventual Romance, Gen, Humor, Mission Fic, Parenthood, Travel, Undercover, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malory's brilliant idea to smooth relations between England and America involves planting Team Archer on a BBC newscast to deliver coded messages that are designed to boost morale.  Unfortunately Archer feels left out of the proceedings when Pam and Lana are named the anchors and does everything he can to sneak his way onto the airwaves - to the disgust of Brits everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hardline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasing_givenchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_givenchy/gifts).



“I don’t know what you’re all pouting about. It’s a perfectly decent idea!” 

It was five in the morning on a Wednesday, and Malory had called the entire team in for an early meeting that no sober, sane person would want to attend – which explained why half the team was clearly in the bag. As for their sanity – no, Malory wouldn’t bother to judge them on that little subject when she’d just seen her son hang by the tips of his fingers from the edge of a window casement the other evening.

“Your idea,” Lana said, “is to plant one of us on a talk show and make us deliver coded messages over the airwaves to keep relations between America and the UK stable. To be honest, it sounds pretty dumb so far.”

“It wasn’t MY idea. The idea came from central intelligence. I just happened to have…polished a few of the elements…” She jostled the ice in her highball glass. “…while we were sharing an unforgettable evening in my penthouse.”

“Mother,” Archer complained from behind a set of dark sunglasses and a mug of too-tomatoey bloody mary, “I don’t want to imagine you doing…THAT…with the head of the NSA.” 

“Then stop picturing and start formulating a plan!” She slammed her glass down onto the desk for emphasis.

“Did she say who she was sending?” Pam whispered.

“Do you want to draw straws?” asked Lana.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Malory cried. “Lana and Pam, I’m sending you because you both have passably decent British accents. Archer and Ray, you’re the muscle.”

“In Ray’s case, the atrophied muscle!” Said Cyril from across the room. The ocular daggers Ray shot in his direction silenced him for a moment. “I just wanted to fit in,” he muttered.

“The only place I want you lot to fit into is a plane headed overseas by this afternoon.” She raised an eyebrow at Lana, tossing her the file. “Take chubby with you. The British air might do her good.”

+++++

That was where Malory was wrong – the British air did anything but agree with little Abbiejean, who immediately developed colic and turned her mother into enemy number one on the six hour flight over from London.

“Lana,” Archer called over the baby’s wailing. “Lana. LANA!”

“GOD DAMN IT ARCHER WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” Abbiejean sniffled against her shoulder and screamed. A slow, angry sigh huffed forth from her.

“Uh, did you break our daughter?” His head popped up over the back of the seat rest. “Please tell me you didn’t break her.”

“No,” Lana said, and handed the baby over. “But if you think you can do better you’re welcome to it.”

Archer only recoiled slightly as the baby was thrust into his arms. “If you wanted a break you should’ve just said so. Why do you have to make everything so dramatic?” But there was a twinkle in his eyes, and Abbiejean immediately stopped crying when she came to rest against her father’s chest.

Lana turned back to her notes and prepared quietly for her briefing in total silence. At least until Pam interrupted with a question about her accent. 

“Should I cool it with the ‘pip pips’ or just concentrate on the cheeri-os?” she wondered.

“Just be yourself with a British accent.”

“So I should fart and talk about the Bulls? I don’t think that’ll go over too well with the limeys..”

“…I’m going to forget you said that. Just read whatever copy Ray and I put in front of you.”

“Thank you for remembering I’m here,” Ray deadpanned from across the aisle. He glanced at Cyril, who had fallen into a deep, drooling, snoring sleep against his shoulder and grimaced. “Well, there’s another silk dress jacket down the toi-toi.”

+++++

London held more charm for Lana than she remembered it having during her last go-through. Abbiejean really seemed to love the beauty of the old town, her eyes eagerly taking in the sights of the city as they wended their way to the BBC.

They were met by a field agent named Marshall, who debriefed them and immediately put them to work. Ray wrote copy, Cyril took on the guise of a producer, Pam and Lana would be the onscreen talent. “All told,” Marshall informed them, “there will be millions of people watching you ladies every evening. Can you handle that pressure?”

“I was born under that kind of pressure,” said Pam, scoffing. 

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” said Lana, to Pam’s glower.

Needless to say, their first time in front of the camera involved Pam’s actually-terrible accent and several interruptions from a jealous Archer. Lana was ready to murder him when Marshall intercepted him.

“Whatever you do,” he said, “keep off the air. You’re doing more to weaken relations between America and Britain than a thousand crates of tea tossed into the ocean.”

“Hah, what does HE know?” Archer wondered to Lana later.

“Everything. He’s the one paying attention to the social media. The feedback was instant. They hate you.”

Archer bent low and picked up his daughter. “You don’t think that bad, do you Abbiejean?”

The girl blew a spit bubble. “She’s barely two,” Lana said. “Just do me a favor and stay out of the way.”

+++++

He didn’t stay out of the way. In fact, he interrupted Pam in mid-presentation on the very next telecast and delivered a “hard-hitting, edgy rant” that would make him, in his own words, the “Limey Howard Stern.”

It included the words “pip-pippery” and he took David Beckham’s name in vain several times before the Beeb cut to a rerun of Benny Hill.

Needless to say, they were relieved of their duties. It took Lana six weeks of diplomacy just to get her passport back. 

“I know you don’t believe me,” Archer told her on the flight home, as he dandled his daughter on his knee. “But I really was trying to do the right thing. I want America to be safe – safe-ish – for Abbiejean. So I thought maybe...”

“I’m sure you thought it was,” she muttered, glaring. But there wasn’t until they reached American soil and she watched him carry their sleeping daughter through customs she sort of actually thought she might forgive him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide!


End file.
